The Christian Apocrypha burst into the public consciousness in 2003, following the publication of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Interest in the wide assortment of texts not included in the Bible has remained strong ever since. Although much has been written and said on the subject, misunderstandings still abound. Tony Burke's Secret Scriptures Revealed dismantles the many myths and misconceptions about the Christian Apocrypha and straightforwardly answers common questions like did the apocryphal texts come from and who wrote them?Why were they not included in the Bible?Is reading these texts harmful to personal faith? The book describes and explains numerous fascinating apocryphal stories, including many that are not well known. Instead of dismissing or smearing the Christian Apocrypha, Burke shows how these texts can help us better understand early Christian communities and the canonical Bible.
The perfect "starter" book for learning about the Christian Apocrypha - concise but detailed, finding each work valuable in its own right including as windows into the different branches of ancient Christian faiths, and trying to balance the liberal and conservative scholars' perceptions of the texts without taking sides, except to deplore the texts' occasional antisemitism.